Time War
by Imipak
Summary: The Tomorrow People find themselves under attack. But this is no ordinary battle and assistance will not come from any ordinary direction.


Moving

by Jonathan Day

A Tomorrow People/Sapphire & Steel crossover

Disclaimer:

The Tomorrow People and all characters thereof are the creation of Roger Price and copyright Thames TV.

Sapphire & Steel and all characters thereof are the creation of P. J. Hammond and copyright ITC.

Time is the creation of the universe, copyright uncertain.

Author's Notes:

This story is set just before the Tomorrow People switch from the old lab to the new one (TP timeline) and between Adventures 2 and 3 (S&S video series timeline). Originally posted by me on the TPFICT mailing list/archive, under the titles of "The Creature" and "Moving", the first two chapters in a series I never developed at that time. These have been merged and cleaned slightly to form the first chapter of a more cohesive story. Beta readers would be appreciated, along with reviews. At this time, I'm using the TV episodes only and make no reference to anything Big Finish has done.

* * *

The creature drifted through the time corridor, hunting, searching for a way in. A way into reality, to take what it wanted, to feed off the break-down of the structure of the Universe. Neither it, nor the other denizens of the corridor "needed" to feed. It was done out of a hunger, an insatiable desire, rather than a physical requirement. They existed, and lived, in a manner of speaking, and would do so whether they ever fed or not.

It had a particular place in the Universe that it liked to feed from. It cared nothing for names, but if it had, it might have known that the inhabitants called it the Milky Way. What it did know, and was now trying to do something about, was that it was populated with telepaths. Because of this, feeding grounds were becoming more and more scarce. In time, there would be none at all.

Simply eating in the earlier timezones only was not an option. Too much activity would draw the attention of the Time Guardians or, worse, Time Agents. Feeding had be selective, and not too much, too quickly, in any one place and time. Even so, they were often repelled. Even switching to other galaxies was not much of an option. The telepaths would eventually unite together against their common enemies and seal off the time corridor forever. At least, into their future.

The creature stopped. It had found what it was looking for. A mix of the old and the new. In this case, an old structure and a new sub-species of humanoid. It wasn't much, but it was just enough, largely because these humanoids were telepaths. Not just any sub-species of telepath, either. This specific sub-species which would be instrumental to the closing of this galaxy to feeding and a part of events leading up to the sealing off of the corridor.

Right here, and right now, though, the sub-species was new. Too young to have evolved any defences against something as powerful as itself. A change now would not only prevent the events that were to follow, but would also cause a galactic war, leaving even more worlds utterly vulnerable to the occupants of the time corridor.

Already, it could see the walls keeping the two existances seperate begin to thin and crumble. Soon, it would cross the bridge into reality and devour the telepaths that were to have been it's bane.

The moment arrived. The creature moved quickly, between the planes of existance, unaware that it's crossing had been observed by others. As this was a powerful entity, two agents were assigned to deal with it.

The creature burst into the Lab. The life-forms tried to teleport out, but it blocked any such transfer. They began to run, and it suspended time around them, playing with them. Their forms becoming mere shadows, as they were taken out of existance. The machine tried to do something, so the creature disabled it's higher functions and devoured it's power source, sensing the food value of this enormously complex device. Still hungry, it consumed all the power in the room, until the circuit breakers, at last, exploded.

The room was dark and lifeless. Nothing stirred. Two figures stood motionless near the middle of the room, forever running from something that wasn't there; bizare manakins in the all-too-quiet hi-tech lab.

The intruder rippled, slightly, still disoriented from traversing the bridge. It moved through the Lab, sensing no attack, but remaining wary. It drifted into the disused underground tunnel, sensing prey - much more prey - nearby. It had severely weakened itself, by supressing the telepaths - much more than it had anticipated. It was vulnerable, and it knew it. It needed to restore itself, before any Agents got here. It knew it always took them time. It always did. Sometimes hours, sometimes months. It needed to be ready.

Halfway across Britain, John blinked awake, the echos of something very unpleasent still in his mind. Images involving the Lab. [TIM?] Nothing. [TIM??] Again, nothing. He sat up, concerned. _It was a mistake, letting myself get talked into taking a few days of rest_ he thought, preparing himself for whatever mess or disaster he'd now have to take care of. _Some rest._ [Hsui? Mike?] Nothing. He finished getting dressed and, after a quick glance round his small hotel room, he tried to jaunt to the lab. Nothing. The link with TIM was definitely down and he wasn't going anywhere fast.

But that didn't make him immobile. It took several hours, rather than the few milliseconds it normally took, but he worked his way from North Wales down through to London. By the end of it, he was worn out. Sneaking through the abandoned Underground tunnels, he reached the lab, unwilling to jaunt the final step, directly into whatever danger was there.

On stepping in, he shivered. It was cold. Far colder than it should have been, even allowing for the total lack of power or anything else. An impossible breeze blew past him. Slowly and cautiously, he moved further into the lab. The sillouettes of his friends, utterly immobile, seemingly frozen in time, could just be made out in the darkness. He took one step forward, then froze. There was movement from the other end of the lab, out of sight in the pitch black. Three people, from the sound of it.

Suddenly, without warning, the lights came on. He blinked rapidly, the change momentarily blinding him. When he could see clearly again, three people - a woman and two men - were standing in front of him. "Who're you?" he said. "What're you doing here?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," said one of the men. The woman looked cooly at John for a moment, then offered her hand to him. He hesitently took it and shook hands. "I'm sorry for the rudeness of my colleague", the woman said. "I'm Sapphire. And you are?"

"I'm John. And you still haven't told me why you're here."

"You don't own this place, do you..?" said the first man again, sarcastically.

John grimmaced. _Saps can be so stupid at times_ he thought. "Why are you here?" he asked again. "And what happened to my friends?"

"You know these people?"

"Yes."

"Once we've done what we're here to do, you and your friends had better pack your bags and find somewhere else to stay."

John looked at the man in amazement. Stupid, arrogant _and_ pompous! "And if we don't?"

Steel sighed. Humans could be so stupid at times. He wondered why he liked the planet so much. He was saved from replying by Sapphire.

"There's something dangerous down here. It's already overwhelmed your friends once and if we don't stop it, it won't stop at just one small room. Soon, London will be like this place. Lifeless."

"If you want a home, if you want a planet, you'll leave." The man sounded sincere.

John blinked. _That's not the usual way for Saps to talk_, he thought.

[Sapphire, we're wasting time] Steel 'pathed.

John's eyebrows rose slightly. [You _do_ know this is a closed world?]

Steel frowned. [The Federation aren't our concern, here. This danger is.]

[Who sent you?]

[That doesn't concern you. Silver? Can you get that pile of junk working?]

The other man looked amused. "Naturally", he grinned.

John stood there, fuming silently. TIM was _not_ junk, the Federation weren't some irrelevent nobodies and telepaths other than the Tomorrow People had no right barging around closed worlds, least of all to order him around.

It only took a few minutes, but it seemed to John to take hours. Finally, though, 'Silver' got TIM active again. John sighed with relief. At least something seemed to be going right. "TIM?"

The computer remained silent. Silver frowned, then took out what looked like a pocket torch and ran it down one side. A deafening screeching sound filled the room. Rapidly, Silver ran the torch the other way, and the sound died away. The lights on TIM's domes flickered experimentally, before settling down, but still nothing.

[TIM?]

"It would seem that your computer's higher functions are being blocked", Silver observed.

"How? And what by?"

"I don't know. Maybe the same thing that caught your friends."

"How do we stop it?"

Sapphire had been wandering round the lab, studying the figures and the computer. "We don't."

Steel turned round. "We don't?"

Sapphire smiled. "The Entity expected Terran telepaths, not us."

Steel frowned. "So?"

Sapphire looked at John. "I'll need your help."

"What with?"

"There's no time. Take my hands again, and try a mind-merge."

John hesitated, but only for a moment. He reached out and took Sapphire's hands. The moment he did so, Sapphire's eyes started glowing an intense blue. John could feel the merge blending in with Sapphire's powers, feeding whatever she was trying to do. Slowly, time seemed to ripple backwards. TIM shut down again. He watched as the room became dark, and a figure that looked like him entered. The wind seemed to howl around him, pulling at him, though there wasn't any air moving. The lights sprang on, and his friends were running away from an amorphous glowing _something_ that was coming through the wall. John could feel a sense of fear from his friends, but something else, too. Rage from whatever that something was, as it saw what Sapphire was doing. Vast energies rippled round Sapphire and John, but whether it had no power over what Sapphire was doing, or if their combined strength was holding it at bay, he didn't know. Nor did he care. Suddenly, there was a flash of blinding light, and he was back in his hotel room. It was 11pm, the previous night, if the clock was to be believed.

Three figures stood by him. "What happened? And why am I here and not at the lab?"

"Time is not as rigid a concept as you might believe", Sapphire told him.

"And my friends?"

"Safe, for now. But in one hour's time, your base will be the sight of an attack by that Entity."

"How do we stop it?"

Sapphire shrugged. "Entities such as that break through holes in space/time. Holes that form through mixing the old and the new."

"But everything, on an atomic level, is all the same age."

Sapphire smiled. "On the atomic level, you're the same as the non-telepaths on this planet, or almost any plant or animal with a similar number of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms. But you aren't the same as them, are you?"

John shook his head, as Sapphire continued. "But composition isn't all that makes up a person or an object. There's it's entire history as that object, too. And more. It's those that make a difference."

"So, what do we do, now?"

"Move. Break the link between the old and the new. Seal the Entity off forever, as it crosses the bridge it's building into your reality."

"I can't kill."

"These Entities can't be killed. That's why we _can_ do our jobs, for all that we're telepaths too."

"What do I tell the others? I can hardly tell them that three time-travelling telepaths jaunted me back from the future to avoid being swallowed up by a glowing blob."

Steel frowned. "Tell them anything you like. Tell them you've had too many break-ins and must move. Just do it."

John nodded, and jaunted back to the lab.


End file.
